In the record of the temptations of the Lord Jesus in the wilderness (Matt. 4:1-11), Satan tries to introduce into His heart a desire which was not in the Word of God. He succeeded in insinuating a lust into the heart of Adam; he fails with Jesus, though He was 40 days exposed to his presence and power. Jesus had to know by experience what it was to be without a single support, without a friend, in solitary dreariness with the devil! Thus He measured the power of Satan. The strong man was there, putting forth all his weapons, but the stronger than he overcame: Jesus binds the strong man. He was abstracted from human condition for 40 days, not like Moses to be only with God, but as the one who was always with God, to be exposed to Satan. None other man needs to be abstracted in order to be tempted; he has only to go on along with men. In this case, this extraordinary separation was to be with the devil. To be with God He did not need anything out of His everyday path, for it was His natural place, but to be with Satan, He needed it. Others are strangers to God and at home with Satan. He, in the most adverse things, is a stranger to Satan and dwells in the bosom of the Father. But He emptied Himself as God to become a servant as man, and there He waits in dependence on the word of Him whom He served. The living Father had sent Him, and He lived by the Father. He was as man under His authority, and His meat was to do His will.
From the Destroyer
“By the word of Thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer” (Psa. 17:4).
It is the written word He ever uses, and Satan is powerless. What amazing importance Jesus gives the Scriptures! God now acts by the Word, and Satan is resisted morally in this way. A man cannot be touched by Satan while the Word is simply used in obedience. “He that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not” (1 John 5:18). It was not as an exercise of divine authority He dismissed Satan, but the enemy is proved unable to grapple with obedience to the Word of God. If he cannot take one out of the path of obedience, he has no power. What could be simpler? Every child of God has the Holy Spirit acting by the Word to keep him.
The Remembrancer, 1897